“There are not wanting several general views of London taken before this fire, by which we are made acquainted with those extensive piles of dwellings it destroyed; several of which I have already mentioned to you. Another also, which is most excellent and rare, is that entitled in Latin, ‘_London the most flourishing City of Britain, and the most celebrated emporium of the whole world_.’ It was engraven by John Visscher in 1616, and published in Holland, ‘by Jud. Hondius at the sign of the Watchful Dog;’ a four sheet print measuring 7 feet 1-1/2 inch by 1 foot 4-3/4 inches, with an English description beneath it. ‘A Capital View,’ adds Gough, in his ‘_British Topography_,’ already cited, volume i., page 749, ‘the plates destroyed in Holland about twenty years ago. T. Davies sold the only impression of it to the King for ten guineas.’ There is, likewise, a variation of this view, without a date, having eight Latin verses at either corner, with the name of ‘Ludovicus Hondius Lusitt.’ It is, says Mr. J. T. Smith, in his ‘_Ancient Topography of London_,’ page 25, ‘extremely well executed, and exhibits a wind-mill standing in the Strand, very near where the New Church is now erected; and another above the Water-works at Queenhithe.’ He considers it as earlier than the productions of Hollar, from the circumstance that the Palace of Whitehall appears in its original state, before the Banquetting House and York and Somerset Water-gates were erected by Inigo Jones. It is also shewn to be a view of the time of King James I., by a royal procession being introduced on the water, in which the royal barge is surmounted by the thistle. London Bridge forms a very large and important feature in this engraving, and I have been informed, that the edifice alone was copied in quarto, for the work entitled ‘_London before the Great Fire_;’ but as that publication stopped with the second number, it was never exhibited for sale.